Column
The U.S. Should Be Paying Parents to Stay Home
Not just during the pandemic, but forever
One of the great ironies of being a mother in the United States is that while you’re told you have the “most important job in the world,” you are given zero money, little support, and none of the protections or respect that one would expect to accompany a role society says is indispensable. Mothers are supposedly invaluable, but our payment only comes in platitudes.
As we stretch into the ninth month of the pandemic, things are still looking grim: Over 1,000 people are dying of Covid every day, unemployment is at record rates, and women are leaving the workforce in numbers so high it could undo decades of economic progress. And while a vaccine appears on its way, it’ll be months before its availability and impact will change Americans’ everyday lives. Given this new reality, it’s absurd that this country hasn’t started to pay people to stay home. Parents, especially — who don’t know whether their children will be in school from one week to the next and who are navigating the full-time work of caring for children during a national crisis — need to be paid.
This is not a radical idea. Other countries are finding ways to compensate parents, whether it’s the full pay given to those in France who can’t find care…
